What If We Just Cut Everybody A Little Slack?

Some almost-incoherent thoughts on my way home from trick-or-treating.

On today’s episode Russell talks Halloween, and about trying to look at everybody in the world the way he looks at his youngest daughter, Norah. Here are some of the insightful thing you will hear on this episode:

Find out why Halloween is not longer Russell’s favorite holiday.

Hear why watching Norah laugh caused Russell to change his perspective on how he sees other pepole.

And find out why Liz Benney was nervous to sign on to have Russell coach her when she found out he was a religious person.

Listen here to find out why Russell believes we need to serve everyone at the highest level possible without casting judgment on them first.

Full Episode Transcript

Hey everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you to a late night Marketing Secrets podcast. It’s Halloween, I just got done trick or treating, and I just dropped off Blake, who has been filming behind the scenes of everything this last week, at the hotel. I’m driving home and I wanted to share with you guys some thoughts.

Alright everybody, this is probably less of a marketing thing, and more of a life thing. I hope you don’t mind if I share this, but it was on my mind a little bit as I’ve been having so much fun with my kids.

So we had Halloween tonight, which it’s crazy. I used to love Halloween, it used to be my favorite holiday by far. I think I’ve recently transitioned from Halloween being my favorite, to now the 4th of July. Just because the fireworks, the age of my kids now, fireworks I think are more fun.

But last year, I didn’t know that was going to happen. Last year my kids started wrestling, so wrestling practice happens until 5:30 every night, we get home at 6:00. So last Halloween, that’s what was happening. We get home from wrestling practice, race home, and in my head I’m like, I’m going to wear my new Batman costume, which if you guys haven’t seen my Batman costume, it’s amazing, but it takes like an hour at least to put it on.

So I’m racing home and I’m like, I don’t have time to put my Batman costume on, and I’m kind of bummed because I wanted to wear that, I was so excited for it. I get home and the kids are eating and everything is crazy and all the sudden the doorbell rings, and I’m like, “Oh trick or treaters.” So we run to the door and it’s my daughter’s friend, and she’s all, “Can Ellie come trick or treating with me?”

And I don’t even know how to explain what happened, it broke my heart. And I didn’t want to, I was like, “No, this is my holiday.” And my wife’s like, “No, this is the kids’ holiday.” And I was like, “No, no.” and it broke my heart, so we let her go with her friends. And then the boys wanted to go with their friends, so I dropped one of our twins off. So it ended up being one of the twins, Norah who fell asleep in the car as we were dropping the other kids off, and then Aiden.

And we went out and I remember it was the most depressing day of my life, I’m not going to lie. I took them trick or treating and I fell asleep in the car, because me and Norah were sleeping the car while Collette took the other one’s out, and I was just like, so bummed because this is my holiday and my kids stole it from me.

But alas, I finally grew up and realized that it’s their holiday. So this year I was more prepared for it, I was like this is going to be good. They went with their friends, we were okay with that. I took Norah out, it was really fun. She is still a super cute age, so at least I got one baby who still loves me. All the rest of them are out with their friends.

Anyway, so that’s what just ended tonight, and I’m not going to lie, I’m beat up and worn out. And my beautiful wife is such a good sport. We had Blake come and film the whole thing and she’s not a big fan of being on camera all the time, but come one we’re doing vlogs, and we need to document us dressing up. And she even got a costume and everything just for it. So she’s amazing to put up with my, with me.

I can’t imagine being married to me. Can you imagine being married to me, that would be so annoying. But I love her and I’m grateful for her. So for any of the spouses of the crazy entrepreneurs, thank you for putting up with your spouse because I know it’s not, it can’t be easy. I can’t even imagine. So I’m grateful for my wife and I’m grateful for all the wives and the spouses. I always tell people you can only be as successful as your spouse will allow you to be, and Collette’s an amazing sport for doing all that even though I know she doesn’t want to.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I actually want to talk about yesterday. So yesterday…..

Hey, sorry to jump in the middle of the podcast episode, but I’m at home and I actually finished recording this whole episode and then I got home and the rest of it just didn’t make that much sense. And then I tried to rerecord it and it didn’t make much sense. So I’m jumping on again, a third time, to try and finish out this episode because it’s something really powerful and profound that I wanted to share, but for some reason I can’t explain it. It’s one of those things where you experience something and then you try to explain it and then it doesn’t really make sense. It was like you had a moment.

So I’m just going to share with you the moment and then the insights, and then again, it may not make any sense to you but hopefully it will give you guys a little glimpse of what I experienced yesterday.

We went to this school carnival at the kids middle school, and we get there and all the kids run off and they’re doing a million things with all their friends, and then me, Collette and my little Norah had a chance to go and hang out. And then we went out to the field and she wanted to go run across the field and I was like, “Okay, let’s go.” So we start running, and we ran all the way to the goal posts, and we ran back and as we’re running, she’s just laughing hysterically, and she’s so cute. And I look over and I just see her face and I see her laughing. It’s just one of those moments when time just froze.

I was like, this is such a cool, it’s a cool experience to see your little daughter laughing and happy. And the experience I’ve been trying to explain to you guys and I’m just struggling to get out, as I was watching her laugh for a split second, I had this really cool realization, where I realized once again that everybody in this world was once a kid, just like Norah. Even the people that drive us crazy, people I love, people I admire, people I look up to, all of them not that long ago were kids just like Norah, running around without a care in the world.

On the same side, people I love and admire and look up to, but also the other side, people that drive me nuts, people I don’t agree with, people that I don’t agree with them personally, or I might not agree with their political beliefs or religious beliefs or whatever. But the gift I was given, and I don’t know how to explain this to you guys, but as I was looking at her I realized everyone once was a child like her.

And it made me just look at people differently for a little bit. I started realizing that the people that drive me nuts, they’re just little kids, they were a little kid not that long ago and they may believe different than me, but it’s because of their life experience or because of the things that they experienced. It could be their parents screwed them up. Or it could be the group of people they got into, or maybe I’m the screwed up one. I don’t know. But it just made me have a different level of love and appreciation for everyone in that moment.

And I wanted to just kind of share with that with you guys because I think so often we give people such a hard time, people that believe differently than us. I know the political seasons are probably coming again soon. I don’t track it close, but man, when the last political stuff happened it was like war every single day and everyone was hating each other.

It’s like, oh my gosh step back and realize the reason why someone is on the left or someone is on the right, they didn’t care about that 10, 15, 20 years ago, or however long that they were little kids like Norah, but because of how they grew up, or because of their parents or situation, all sorts of things, that’s why they believe that way. You may feel that they’re wrong, or I may feel they’re wrong, but at the same time it doesn’t mean they’re bad.

Same thing with religious beliefs, same thing with all aspects of our lives. I don’t know, after seeing her in my mind I was like, I want to be more tolerant of people. I want to be more loving with people. I want to respect them for who they are because they’re all children of God, just like little Norah here running around.

Then I started thinking about our callings. Everyone who is listening to this podcast, if you’ve been following me for more than 5 minutes you know that I don’t believe business is just about selling stuff. I believe that we are called to these callings, what we’re doing are actual callings. Like me and our team building Clickfunnels and training entrepreneurs isn’t just because we’re trying to make money, we feel like there’s a higher calling.

In fact, at the Dry Bar Comedy Club, where Andrew Warner interviewed me for two hours on the Clickfunnels startup story, he asked that. He’s like, “Do you guys believe that this is inspired by God?” and I was like, “Oh yeah, 100%. No doubt in the slightest. We definitely feel like this is a spiritual thing for us. We’re doing our best to serve the people we have at the highest level that we’re able to.” We’re by far not perfect, we screw up so many times, and we don’t always give the best service all the time. You know, sometimes we have customers that leave angry or upset or whatever, but man we try hard. If you guys knew how hard I try at every angle every direction.

And I just think about this, as we’re serving we shouldn’t care about what people believe, you know what I mean. We should serve selflessly, serve without worrying about that. It’s interesting, and I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing this, but one of my close friends and someone I admire and look up to so much is Liz Benney, some of you guys know Liz.

It was interesting when I first met her and she joined our coaching program, this is probably 3 or 4 years ago now, and she told me this. So Liz and she’s got a beautiful wife Christy, and you guys know that I’m a Mormon, I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and she told me when she was applying through our thing, there’s a video of me telling the story about how God changed my life, and I talked about God in this video. And she told me she was scared to apply because she’s like, “What if, Russell talked about God, what if he won’t want to work with me, or what if he looks down on me, or what if whatever?”

And man, who knows there may be a time in my life, I don’t know, who knows? Hopefully not. I hope I never have been or would be that way, but you know she came in and I was like, I don’t care what you…that’s not my purpose. My job is to serve in the best of my capacity anybody who’s willing to listen to my voice. And I shouldn’t be pushing people aside because of sexual orientation or because of political beliefs or religious beliefs or anything. That’s not my choice.

I have so many things that I struggle with, I should not be the one trying to fix people’s things. That’s not up to me. My job is, hey Russell, this is your sphere of influence, this is the platform you’ve been given. Everyone who comes to you, serve them at your highest level regardless of any of those things.

And I almost feel like if I was to try to cast judgment or doubt or whatever on people for whatever the thing is they’re struggling with, man, I think about all the things I struggle with. What if the mentors and the people I was seeking help from didn’t want to help me because I’m a Mormon, or because I believe this way, or because I’m struggling with this addiction, or this problem, or this thing. I don’t think we have the rights or we shouldn’t be the ones who are doing any of those things because we’re not perfect ourselves right. So why should be the ones coaching everybody on all these things? I feel like we’re given these platforms to serve anyone and everyone who comes to us, at our highest level, no matter what we’re able to do.

And I think yesterday in that moment with Norah, as I was looking at her and seeing her laugh, and I just got this weird love for everybody where I was like, oh my gosh, I just need to…any prejudices, anything like that that I have in my mind, I just need to get rid of them and look at everybody through this lens of oh my gosh, this is someone who is just trying to figure this out. Figure out this whole game the same way I am. And I can’t cast my preconceived notions or judgments upon them, it’s not my job, not my role. My role is to serve each person.

I look back at Liz, I had a chance, it was fun…I hadn’t heard from her for a while and she Voxed me yesterday and was just telling me about everything she’s doing, the people she’s serving, how much success she’s had and how many people’s lives she’s changing. And it was such a special moment. I’m so grateful that first off, she was willing to apply even though I know she had fear. She told me there was fear of that.

I’m grateful that people on my team didn’t cast any judgment. I’m grateful I didn’t cast judgment. I’m grateful that we looked at her as we look at anybody and just said, look we’re going to do our best to serve her at our highest level because she’s special, she’s got a gift, she’s got the ability to affect other people’s lives. And I think that if we start looking at everyone around us that way, it will help us to not judge them because of their political beliefs or judge them because of their religious beliefs or judge them because they believe something or do something different than we do.

Everyone’s got their own demons inside themselves and until, what’s the parable? If you read the bible there’s a parable, you know whoever is perfect among you, cast the first stone. And I’m like, I’m not perfect so I’m not casting any stones. Because I don’t want those things coming back at me. Instead it’s in your sphere of influence, serve the best you can.

So anyway, I don’t know if that makes any sense or if that helps at all. I hope it does. I just know for me, I had this really rare, amazing glimpse seeing my daughter and in this instant I saw everybody as her. And I was like man, everyone here 10 years ago, 15, 20, 30 however many years back was just like Norah is now. And I love Norah so much and I was like, I need to love everybody that much because if I do I can truly have an impact on them.

And if I’m not careful when I look at people through this other lens, it’s going to hold myself back. Anyway, it was really a reminder for me just to understand y mantle, my calling, my job, my profession, my career, whatever you want to call it, that I’m called to serve all people and anyone who can hear my voice and is willing to come towards me, I’m going to do my best to serve them at the highest level I can, regardless of everything else.

So I’m grateful for everyone, grateful for you guys who are listening to this, I’m grateful also for your willingness to go out and get your message out there. It’s a scary thing, and as you will find, two things you will find as you start putting your message out there…It’s funny, Steven Larsen shared one of them yesterday at the telethon, he’s like, “As soon as you go hit publish, the second you go out and start doing your thing, instantly every character flaw you have is going to smack you in the face. That’s the best thing about business, as soon as you start putting yourself out there, all your character flaws come like, boom, right in front of your face.” It’s scary.

That’s number one. Number two then, the critics come fast, and they want to silence you as quick as they can. But man, I’m grateful for you guys who are willing to step up every single day in spite of those things, in spite of the fact that starting a business will bring every character flaw you have to the surface and you’re going to be super, hyper aware of it. Things that weren’t that big a deal before suddenly become a big deal because you are the leader, you are the person who’s putting yourself out there. And number two, the critics when they come, it can be scary. I will get critics from this podcast.

I will get messages from people who are like, “I can’t believe you talked about God in the podcast. I came to listen to marketing, not…” I will get that, I guarantee it, I get it every single time. But it’s like, it doesn’t matter. This is my message and I’m sharing it, and I’m sharing it and I’m grateful for you guys that are willing to do those same things as well, because it’s scary, it’s rare, but man when you do it, it’s why you’re here.

So know that, keep being bold, keep being brave, keep putting your message out there. Get rid of any judgments or things you have out there because that’s not your role. Your role is to serve at your highest level to all people who will hear your voice. And if you do that, you serve selflessly, you’ll be able to have the impact you really want.

So there you go. For all those who I offended today, I’m so sorry. For those who heard my message and understand it, thank you and I hope that you’re able to look at people the same way I had a chance to see people yesterday when I was looking at Norah. So thanks everybody, appreciate you all. Have a great night and we will talk to you again tomorrow.

Who is Russell Brunson?

Over the past 10 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.